I came downstairs on Monday morning, while Belle was getting dressed for school, to the usual collection of breakfast debris. For some reason, she seems to be under the impression that she lives in a cafe, and so every morning is a dilemma – do I ask her to tidy up after herself, and face her teenage wrath, or just do it myself and live in peace?

On Monday morning though, I didn’t come down to the usual sticky peanut butter knife or empty cereal bowl. On Monday I came downstairs to find an empty packet of bacon and tomato ketchup flavour crisps on the sofa. 

teenage fussy eater

I was feeling brave, so I decided to confront her.

“You know it’s not okay to eat crisps for breakfast don’t you?” I said, ducking down behind the table. (Metaphorically.)

“But they were bacon flavour,” she said.

?

“So it counts as breakfast,” she clarified.

Ah right. Well that’s fine then. 

Now the issue I have is that I’m actually quite fond of Belle, and don’t want her to get rickets or any other weird vitamin deficiency, but once a child gets to 14, how exactly are you meant to make them do things? This applies generally to be honest, but with food in particular, how are you actually, physically, meant to get them to eat sensible things?! I’d hoped that as she got older, she’d grow out of her fussy eating habits, and be happy to at least be in the same room as a courgette, but if anything it’s getting worse. She used to tolerate peas for instance, but even they have seemed to have slipped on to her ‘don’t make me eat that or I’ll gag’ list.

So how do you do it?

I provide her with a range of tasty options and I encourage her to try new things. I don’t especially want to never have treats in the house, (I like treats), but even if I did resort to that, at 14 she is quite capable of just stopping at the shop on her way home and buying her own crisps. Where has my authority gone?

(More to the point, was it ever there in the first place?)

I just want to be a good parent, or at least the sort that you don’t feel the need to report to anyone, but apart from holding Belle down and stuffing her cheeks with kale, how do I make her eat good things?

Photo – Only Fabrizio/shutterstock

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Looking for ways to get children to eat vegetables? You’ve come to the right place…


ways to get children to eat vegetables

“I’m not eating that,” says Belle, practically spitting as she speaks. She is pointing with her fork at some broccoli, as though we have heaped actual excrement onto her plate alongside the fish fingers.

“It’s fine!” I say, with forced good humour. “Just eat it with something else and you won’t even taste it.”

She looks at me as though I’m possibly the stupidest creature that’s ever been allowed to roam the earth, let alone be in charge of meal planning. “It’s disgusting,” she says, with a look of genuine repulsion.

This is how I have spent almost every meal time for at least the last 12 years – coming up with new ways to get children to eat vegetables has become the bane of my life and to be quite honest I am just about done. I am teetering on the brink of not giving a toss. “It’s only your health and well being,” I want to say, “have Poptarts for every meal for all I care.” View Post

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“What’s for tea?”

“Lasagne.”

“Does it have mushrooms in?”

“Yes, but in tiny pieces, you won’t even taste them.”

“But I HATE mushrooms! Why would you put MUSHROOMS in it?” *throws self on floor at the horror of it all*

Does this sort of conversation sound familiar? (The mushroom hater is meant to be a child, not a partner or customer in a restaurant or anything.)

All parents at some point or another must surely be the victim of fussy eating. It’s certainly been the bane of my life in one form of another for the last 18 years, whether it’s babies refusing anything other than breastmilk or tiny squares of toast and marmite for the first year of their life, or teenage fads for wheat free, diary free or vegan diets. View Post

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